


In for a Penny, In for a Pound

by paeryn



Series: Keys to the Kingdom [1]
Category: Young Avengers
Genre: Anxiety, Depression, Grief, M/M, but also Hope
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-10-17
Updated: 2013-10-16
Packaged: 2017-12-29 15:28:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 14,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1007030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paeryn/pseuds/paeryn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Young Avengers become Avengers.  Well, what’s left of them. And then they decide to hang up their capes for good. That's when the secrets come, and what small peace they have is slowly fractured like unto glass.  But Fate has a different plan altogether for our devastated young demiurge and his friends, and it will only let them grieve so long…</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Prologue in Scarlet

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Puppy](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/29231) by Stoopz. 



> My first claim for the Young Avengers Reverse Big Bang 2013, and my first fanfic! This one, much like my 1602 claim, started out small and grew to a ridiculous size. There is a **huge** story waiting to be told here, and our tale is but the opening number. This story takes place all around and through most of Avengers: The Children’s Crusade #9, and before the second series of Young Avengers. I just _might_ have messed with some of the chronology of events. And there just _might_ have been a reason.

_At the end, surrounded by so much devastation, it was all I could do to hold it together. It had all been too much. The Life Force surging through me, ripped out of me, and the spells and counter-spells I’d woven with my son had killed what little emotional and magical reserves I had left. I’d put on a brave face when the X-Men threatened me as they walked away and when the Avengers asked me to come back as one of their own. As if the ocean of all I had done would ever be able to be crossed to those shores again. I held firm until my family approached me, the last strange group to claim my allegiance, intent on tearing me away to whatever they saw as my future. Pietro, so insistent that I needed to be protected, but so very intent on smothering me while he did so. My father, stolid and sure that his way was right and that all our history can be swept away in a moment, because he so desperately wants the world to do the same to his own. I stood strong against them, though. As incomprehensible as it is to me, my children have returned to me. A blessing I didn’t even know I was searching for sought me out instead. And this time I’m committed to doing this right._

_It was when they both latched on to me that I sank to the ground and finally let myself mourn all that had happened. What I had done, and what had been done to me. What these poor children had to suffer in their pursuit of me. How were any of us going to put ourselves together again? I needed time alone to try to process, for the first time, what had happened to me since that fateful day back at the mansion. The boys were filled with questions, and those needed to be put to rest as well. So we returned to Manhattan, so William could make contact with his earthly parents and reassure them._

_And I began the long, slow process of trying to find myself beneath the mountain of guilt I was crushing myself under. But I wasn’t the only one._


	2. Moving Out, Moving On

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eight Months Later...Disparition. Beastmaster. Serendipity III. Tragedy of Errors.

After that awkward parting once they got home, Teddy was shocked how fast things seemed to fall apart. Two days later, Eli was in transit to his mom’s in Arizona. He didn’t leave a forwarding address, though he supposed Billy could find him easily enough if they ever needed to. But the fact that Eli just seemed to just walk away from them hurt Teddy so much it surprised him. He knew it would take a harpoon to the throat to get Billy to confess how devastated he was, so he kept his own pain to himself. Not so much about Eli leaving the team, but Eli seemingly leaving his friendship with them behind when he moved. Nothing was said, but the silence from Eli before he left was all Billy needed to internalize yet more guilt and pain. Teddy could see it every time he caught Billy out of the corner of his eye. He put on a brave face when interacting with others, especially his little brothers, but when he thought no one was looking that facade dropped and Teddy could see just how great a toll their quest to find Wanda had taken on his boyfriend. It wasn’t pretty. He’d kill to find a way to make Billy genuinely smile again.

The thunder of small, clumsy feet racing down the hardwood stairs gave Teddy all the warning he was going to get as Billy’s little brothers came barreling into the room and made flying leaps onto Billy and Teddy respectively. Billy mistook just how fast Jake was coming at him and they both fell down with a loud smack as the boy landed firmly on Billy’s chest, and Billy landed firmly on his backside. Both were laughing, Teddy was glad to see. Billy always seemed to want to put on his bravest face for the boys. Soon Teddy didn’t have a chance to analyze his boyfriend’s every move because he had his hands full with Davey, who was squirming like a ferret and giggling as Teddy tried to grab a hold of him. Instead, he found himself laughing so hard he had tears in his eyes. During all the insanity of the last few years, somehow Davey had discovered that Teddy’s sides, right alongside his ribcage, was insanely ticklish and made use of that knowledge every single chance he could. For a second, all four of them were just laughing and jostling about, but then it grew quiet as it usually did these days. Glancing over, that faraway look was threatening to come back to Billy’s eyes.

“Billy’s home! Where did you go, did you bring me something? Were there bad guys? Did you beat them up?” Jake talked almost as fast as Tommy when he was excited, which was often. 

“No, we just went for a walk in the park. Did you take a bath? Cause you stink…sorta like a little…ferret!” Billy smirked as he went on a tickling rampage. Jake squirmed and kicked as he laughed and hiccuped as his older brother attacked him without any mercy. Never mind the park they’d walked had been in Chicago. Billy always found lake-shores peaceful, and they’d never been before, so Teddy had done the boyfriendly equivalent of twisting his arm to go visit the park and grab a couple Chicago Hots for lunch.

“They blocked off the way to school today, so we didn’t haveta go! Justin says Spider-man was fighting a bunch of kids flying around dressed like birds and they had a qua..qua..cause stuff kept falling from the tops of buildings and stuff. I wish they’d have let us see, that would’ve been cool.” Davey let out an exasperated sigh that was one of the hallmarks of a Kaplan upbringing. Teddy thought it might actually be coded into their genes.

“Next time you guys go to the park, you should take us with you! That way if anyone is being bad, we can finally see the two of you in action!” Jake winced right after he said it. The boy was only 9, but his prurient interests seemed to be decidedly above his grade level. “Ugh, not like that, you know. That’d be like watching Mom and Dad…”

Teddy had been amazed how easily the boys had taken in Billy’s coming out process. They’d both been in the kitchen, off of the living room, when he and Billy had come rushing in to tell them they were superheroes before Captain America stole their thunder—as well as their ability to go heroing at all. Only that’s not what came of it, since Rebecca and Jeff Kaplan had figured out ages before that Billy might not entirely like girls ‘in that way’. When the Kaplans mistakenly took Billy’s stammering attempt to out himself as a superhero as an attempt to, well, out himself, both of Billy’s parents welcomed both boys into the fold with literal open arms. And only moments later, both boys came around the corner and walked up to Teddy with very serious, though curious, expressions and asked if that meant Teddy was now their brother, too. And that’d been that. 

“I’m going to the MOMA tomorrow,” Billy said, “but Teddy will be here to entertain both of you ferrets. So no poking around either of our rooms looking for secret treasure, you hear?” That had become a real concern, that something either he or Billy might bring back to the house from one of their field trips might end up in the kids hands, or causing trouble for the family overall. Even though they’d hung up their costumes since their return, they still occasionally made use of their powers and they weren’t about to take any chances with the family either of them had left. So they never traveled from the house by anyway other than their two feet, and kept their souvenir buying to a minimum.

Teddy was relieved to hear Billy was headed out to the museum tomorrow. If he was going alone, that meant he had a date with his ‘other mother’. Billy still hadn’t brought up the strange situation of his double family with the parents that raised him. There was no way to do it that wouldn’t hurt them, and he couldn’t take adding any more pain to the people he cared about. 

Thankfully, Wanda kept her distance, for the most part. They went out to lunch, they walked local parks or some of Billy’s favorite museums. Sometimes they talked about what they were going through, but more often than not these trips were filled with companionable silence. Teddy sometimes tagged along, but he recognized Billy needed both space and time alone with his newfound mom. It was relatively easy to find excuses to bow out, what with catching up on missed school work and trying to keep Jake and Davey out of trouble. He’d taken to calling them Podo and Kodo, because they got into just as much trouble as the Beastmaster’s ferrets. He especially loved teasing them with the nicknames because he and Billy refused to tell the troublesome duo where the names came from. Oh, and the ferret jokes were sort of endless. The boys wriggled their way free and said that dinner was going to be ready in a few minutes and took back off up the stairs the way they had came.

Wanda wasn’t the only one who would occasionally stop by. Kate came by often enough, those first few weeks. They did lunch, they shopped and spent her ridiculous allowance. They ended up with new wardrobes, which Teddy was thankful for. So much of his stuff had been destroyed when his apartment was wrecked by the Super-Skrull as it had killed his mom. He’d been shape-shifting clothes, some days, just so that people wouldn’t know just how bleak his situation was. If Billy’s parent’s hadn’t offered him their guest room in exchange for helping with chores and a list of rules about what sort of behavior was ok with their oldest son, he might’ve found himself living with Tommy—and that was a fate he very much wished to avoid. It’s not that he disliked the guy, it’s just the constant talking and the over the top explanations and constant talking and oh yes, the talking. Fast. It got to be too much sometimes, even on missions, and he couldn’t imagine having to live with it day in and day out.

They almost always came away from their Manhattan adventures with Kate exhuasted, as they tried so hard to do all of the stereotypically ‘normal’ things that a gal and her two Guy Fridays would do. It all felt hollow, though. The last time he’d seen her was when Kate had needed to take a break from the constant drama surrounding her sister’s surprise pregnancy and she’d met them down at Serendipity 3. Sometimes having friends with seemingly bottomless pockets did provide you with perks—like being able to eat at the restaurant that gave its name to one of Teddy’s favorite romantic comedies of all time. So he wasn’t exactly dismissive when Kate called the day after Billy’s MOMA adventure and asked the two of them to save her from killing her sister by splitting some serious chocolate instead. She’d met them at the door and, after a small wait, they were ushered inside. They soon had two giant glasses of frozen hot chocolates sitting before them and the only sound emanating from the table was the ungracious slurping of straws and the small moans of contentment that followed.

Kate broke their chocolate-ladened detente first, “Have you heard from Eli?”

“No,” said Teddy between sips, slowly drawing out the moment as his straw dueled with Billy’s in the dark delicious depths of their shared delicacy. He closed his eyes and wondered whether Billy was Jonathon and he was Sarah, or the other way around. He shook his head, amused at himself.

“No, not since that afternoon, really,” Billy muttered.

Kate shook her head, “I heard from him just once, a quick text letting me know he got to his mom’s ok. No one knows what a stubborn ass he can be as well as I do, but I’m still a bit shocked how quickly he just cut off all ties with,” she gulped down an icy chocolate pause, “us.”

Neither of the boys really knew what to say. Eli and Kate had a complicated relationship, and they had been off as much as they’d been on. That said, even if the team was gone it was clear the three of them had hoped all the remaining members would continue to be friends, at the least. Obviously Eli had other ideas.

They spent the rest of the afternoon catching up. Kate had been spending time with Cassie’s dad, trying to fill him in on the life his daughter had led in his absence. Scott didn’t seem shocked at all about the Civil War between Cap and Tony, but the Skrull Invasion and Jan’s death had apparently rocked him in his boots.

Billy mentioned he’d been seeing Wanda, who had gotten an apartment somewhere in town, though Billy was deliberately vague on the details. Or maybe Wanda had been with him, Teddy couldn’t tell. They traded stories of what was happening in the lives of heroes they knew that they’d read in the papers. Teddy had taken to tutoring some kids in the grade below him to get some extra credit. When Billy had asked Kate if she’d seen Clint at all, she took a moment to take another deliberate sip of her frozen hot chocolate, which was melting as they conversed. 

“No, I haven’t seen him. I assume he’s busy doing Avengery things, as Avengers do. And probably getting himself in more trouble than he knows how to get himself out of.” She glanced away, out the window. There was something brewing there, something she wasn’t saying. But if Kate had earned anything after what she’d been through, it was to keep a few secrets. He didn’t have too much to worry about, Teddy reassured himself. After all, Kate had volunteered to give up her bow before Billy had announced he wanted to put his hero days behind him, too. He snorted softly to himself. As if Kate Bishop needed him, Kree, Skrull, or any man, to watch her back.

After they finished their drinks, Teddy made the requisite joke about Kate not leaving her gloves behind and they found themselves in the street. They gave each other their standard goodbye hugs. If they lasted a little longer, or they squeezed each other a little tighter, well, that was alright. They’d been through enough. But the visits dwindled soon after, as did the phone calls. They kept in touch, but it seemed like there was this vast gulf between them that kept getting wider the harder they tried to fight it. 

Tommy, as usual, wasn’t helping matters. He’d moved into their former lair at the Bishop Publishing building upon their return. You’d never know it, though—it seemed like his every spare moment was over at the Kaplan brownstone fighting with his twin about returning to his cape, and complaining how bored he was without super-heroing every day and how lonely he was at the lair all by himself. It seemed the list of complaints were endless. Tommy regaled them both with the comedic horror shows that were his few solo attempts at being a hero after the Young Avengers disbanded. Teddy could see Tommy was trying to help Billy, if in his own insane way. He dangled so much of their past out in front of Billy, and Billy couldn’t help but rise to the occasion. It seemed that the only thing that’d get a rise out of his once gushingly excitable boyfriend was his twin. The fights weren’t always pretty, but Teddy was thankful for the catharsis that seemed to follow them. But it wasn’t a permanent solution.


	3. The Windowsill

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dimorphism. Atavism.

It was probably a month or so later that Kate canceled their plans for the first time. She didn’t even call, but rather just sent a text. Kate and Billy both had been dying to go see Kinky Boots, and they had refused to take his repeated objections as an answer. The day before they were supposed to go, however, they both got a text from Kate

_Sorry, boys. Some sort of gala at the Opera house, and daddy dearest can’t take the whale as his date. Seriously, you should see Susan. Size of a blimp. I promise, we’ll go next week._

The next week, she canceled again. The texts increased, but they didn’t see her again. And that was the source of the fight that started everything all over again. Tommy was over, playing some stupid video game with Billy, and Billy was just so over both his brother and the game that he was very clearly just letting Tommy win. Unfortunately, Tommy’s speed also included his reaction times, so he knew in seconds that Billy was throwing the game. And then he decided that enough was enough and threw the controller on the floor and just stared at Billy for a moment. 

As exhausted as Billy was from the simple act of living, Teddy was getting sick to death of stepping between the two brothers every time one of them said something to get the other’s ire up. Teddy immediately perked up, sensing the tension rising in the room. This wasn’t just another fit of annoyance, he could tell. This was going to come to blows. He shuffled across the floor, scooching his butt across the rug to try oh so subtly to put himself between the twins before whatever was between them erupted, eventually resting his back on Billy’s chest. He could feel Billy’s heartbeat racing against his back through their shirts. Billy’s hands absently found themselves sliding across Teddy’s ribs, wrapping themselves around his stomach and latching upon each other as he pulled Teddy close.

Billy was bewildered by his brothers reaction, so sure he'd kept his annoyance to himself. But as it turns out, this was just the latest in a long list of slights that Tommy had kept a detailed log of inside his speed-addled brain. And as Tommy’s voice grew louder as he listed his grievances, it also grew faster. Billy just sat there and blinked as his brother became utterly intelligible—only snapping out of it when he heard him slow down enough as he trailed to the end of his rant with “…and that’s why Kate is sick of your crap, too. Why the hell do you think she’s not even bothering to call anymore to cancel your precious meetings? Which, by the way, thanks for never including me in. You knew I had a horse in that race, man, especially with Eli gone. But she can’t even bear to hear your voice anymore. And you know what? Neither can I. If all you can be is sorry, Billy, then I just don’t. I…” and then he was gone. 

Billy blinked back a few shocked tears and looked down at Teddy, so sure he too was going to run. He’d thought the same thing, of course. The first time Kate had held something back at Serendipity, he’d caught it. That brief hiccup of air before she changed whatever it was she was going to say. She was moving on, moving away from him like the others. He didn’t say anything to her about it because it was what he deserved, after he’d been so selfish and let down so many. Poor Scott Lang, who was back but without his daughter. Jonas, who died in front of him while he didn’t lift a finger. Nate, who he let slip into the timestream and become one of the worst villains the universe had ever seen. Kate, who’d watched her best friend die and had her confidence shaken because Billy had been so sure he knew what was the right thing to do, and she had led the team behind him. Reckless, so reckless. And Teddy’s mom. Oh god, their first failure. Teddy wouldn’t leave, because he couldn’t. Where could he go? He was doubly an orphan because they had thought they were heroes. He had nowhere else to go, and so he stayed. Billy felt sick to his stomach. He had to get out, had to get away from all of this, this life that he’d created for himself. Or, he guessed, technically Wanda had created for him—but he was the one who had lit it on fire and watched it burn. He needed time to think straight. 

_IwanttobealoneIwanttobealoneIwanttobealone_

Teddy fell backwards as a rush of air took the place of where Billy used to be. 


	4. In for a Penny...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Egg and the Wall.

Billy returned the next morning, but he didn’t leave his room. In fact, he didn’t seem to want to interact with anyone. It was the worst Teddy had ever seen him, and he didn’t know what to do. Even the ferrets tried to work their normal magic, only to come back dejected and rebuffed. Thankfully, he didn’t have to sue for peace between Billy and his other brother. Tommy was back, making as much of a nuisance of himself as normal in just a few days. He did his best to bring news of what heroes he’d seen around the city, and the crazy news of the world at large. It seemed things had gotten downright strange after they’d exited stage left. Billy didn’t budge from that windowsill, watching the world of wonder that used to thrill him, that had made him such a believer in heroes that his belief had transformed him, quite literally, into one. 

His face blank, Billy barely responded as news came in of much of the city gaining Spider-man’s powers, and then turning into spiders themselves. He didn’t bat an eye as Teddy read to him reports from the Bugle about the return of the Human Torch. His twin reported that there’d been some sort of split amongst the X-Men and that, of all things, Wolverine was apparently opening a school. While Teddy and Tommy both tried to mine the comedy gold of that scenario, Billy just seemed to drift in and out of the conversation, barely contributing anything besides his breath and the occasional Kaplan sigh.  


Teddy and Tommy both came to him when the Phoenix returned and the conflict between the Avengers and the X-Men they had put on the back burner came to a boil. Even when they got news that Wanda was directly involved in whatever Armageddon was about to happen, Billy just turned and looked at them with red-rimmed eyes that seemed to say, “This is what we should’ve expected. There are no happy endings anymore.”

When Victor Mancha called desperately looking for Nico, Billy didn’t even pick up the phone. He deleted the message once Teddy was out of the room. Later that night, Teddy grabbed Billy’s phone by mistake and when he saw his recent calls he noticed two things. The first, and most obvious, being it was not his phone. The second was that Victor’s message—and the phone number it had come from—had been deleted. And that was when Teddy hit rock bottom. He had tried everything he could think of, and what little that had worked had not worked for long. He resigned himself to the fact that he couldn’t bring Billy out of this on his own. He was going to need some help. He got up and walked out of Billy’s room and headed towards the living room.

“Mr. And Mrs Kaplan? I think we have to talk…”


	5. In for a Pound

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A proposal. The Young Avengers are dead, long live the Avengers. The Garden of the Fallen. Little Heartaches.

Teddy and the Kaplans stayed up most of the night talking. They talked about the death of his and Billy’s friends, and how Billy seemed to be growing colder and more isolated even though all three could tell how much he was hurting and how much he wanted to reach out to them. He did what he could to spin talk away from Wanda and the giant ball of awkward that was at the center of everything that had happened recently. Needless to say, he failed. Billy was probably going to kill him. Maybe that would be a good sign if he wanted to—at least then he’d be interested in doing something.

But later that night, as he snuck from his room to his boyfriend’s, Teddy admitted that maybe that wasn’t precisely true. And as Teddy held Billy tight as he shivered in his sleep, he noticed that the one constant thing through all of this was that Billy hadn’t tried to pull away from him. And if they could survive the disbanding of their team, the death of their friends, the death of his own family—well, most people aren’t tried like that. But they have been and were as strong as ever, despite Billy’s desperate depression. Looking back, that was the moment he decided to propose. And the next night, he did—albeit not in the way he was expecting. 

For a few moments, as they both realized what Teddy had just done, they stood slackjawed at each other before suddenly there was Billy pressed against him, arms flailing as they attempted to reach around his mountain of shoulders, Billy’s lips meeting his with such force he almost fell backwards. This is how it should be, Teddy thought. Every day, every moment, just like this.

Carol had to pick that moment to rap on the window and summon them, in costume, to the Mansion. So of course they both went, and while they were all clearly honored to be granted some sort of pseudo-Avengers status (’cause if they were real Avengers, they’d have gotten their ID cards, and that didn’t happen), they were all moved more by the statues of Jonas and Cassie alongside her father’s statue in the Garden of the Fallen. Billy had come up with that name, and Teddy had admitted it had sort of stuck. 

After the older Avengers wandered away, the four of them found themselves alone in the same garden where their team had really first come together—but with so many missing or lost, there was no sense of nostalgia--only an ache where there was once a bubbling cauldron of hope.

“Cassie…she would’ve loved this. I mean, right here next to her father’s…” Kate’s voice trailed away.

“Yeah…it’s just so awkward, though. He’s here, and she’s gone, and there’s nothing about it that feels even close to right,” Billy said, never taking his eyes away from the statue of his friend.

“It’s what she wanted though. I mean, how many times did she say she was willing to do whatever it took if she could bring her father back?” Tommy asked, making a deliberate show of not wiping away the glistening drops appearing at the corners of his eyes and smoothing his hair back instead.

“I know. It’s just, I don’t think she ever really thought—none of us thought, really—that this would be how things played out. And her dad, did you see him today? All smiles for us, but did you see his eyes? I don’t think he’s nearly as ok as he says he is,” said Teddy, and then in a quieter voice, “I don’t think any of us are.”

“I miss her too, Teddy” Kate said as she handed Tommy some tissues.

Quietly, almost a whisper, Billy says ‘Do you think Nate found her in the timestream?”

“That’s a whole new bag of crazy right there,” said Tommy. “There’s no way of knowing if, or when, Nate will do whatever he’ll do.”

Trying to change the subject, Kate mentions “Speaking of surprises, I hear the Vision—the original, not Jonas—is back online.”

“Oh, well…” says Billy, clearly taken aback. With everything else going on, it had never occurred to him to seek out the original Vision once he’d gotten home with the answers he’d sought. “Um..I guess I ought to introduce myself at some point.”

All three pointedly looked at Billy, who dropped his gaze to investigate his friends feet.

“Actually, I have no idea what to do about that. My mom and dad are half insane just finding out the truth about Wanda and Tommy. How do I explain to …I can barely explain it to myself in any sort of way that makes sense,” Billy let out in a rush as he sat down on a bench. Teddy squeezed his shoulder.

“We all just need to take it one day at a time. It’s ironic, really.” Kate said, resting her hand on the crooked out elbow of the statue of her former teammate.

“How’s that?” Tommy asked, trying his best to stay in place despite his legs and mind wanting to be anywhere but yet another pity party. He missed the others like the rest, of course—but he wasn’t about to let his life be dictated by the dead. He was trying to behave himself.

Kate shook her head in disbelief, “We spent how long fighting for the right to be heroes, to be recognized as legitimate—through the Civil War, the Skrulls (sorry, Teddy), Osborne’s crazy craziness, the whole Asgardian nightmare…and when they finally got around to acknowledging everything, we’d already walked away from it all.” 

Tommy immediately jumped in, “Well, you know not everyone is walking away from it all. And your costumes are still at the factory and if you’re all really…” 

“Not now, Tommy,” said Billy and Kate at the same time, and looked at each other with small smiles. No one standing there could deny that losing their heroic alter egos hadn’t hurt, but they still had this. These bonds, these friendships—they weren’t going anywhere. Even Tommy, who looked beyond his typically exasperated self, seemed to be fighting back a smile. Things weren’t what they were, but nothing stayed the same forever. They said their goodbyes not long after, each promising the other that they’d be better about staying in touch.

To a point, that ended up being true. After the night they were crowned Avengers and Teddy’s proposal, things did seem better. It had felt like closure to Teddy, and he started to consider the possibility that they’d be returning to the hero life. But after the euphoria wore off, things with Billy didn’t change nearly enough. He didn’t live on the windowsill anymore, but he wasn’t really living either. He engaged with the people around him with small talk, small gestures--but always in a distracted way, as if his mind was leagues away. 

Wanda wisely kept her distance, especially after the last time she attempted to visit with Billy. The Kaplans’ knowing about Billy’s true relationship with Tommy and his ‘soul mother’ was going to take a lot of adjustment on everyone’s part and in the interest of everyone’s sanity a cooling off period was agreed to be in the interest of all parties. Kate called now, though she seemed almost as distracted as Billy—and they still never seemed to be able to meet up. 

For Tommy, though, there was no such thing as a cooling off period. For all the grief he gave his twin brother, Tommy wasn’t going to go anywhere. Amusingly, the Kaplans’ seemed just fine with the arrangement, treating him like an adopted son. So much so, Teddy was worried they were going to ask him to move in too. Thankfully, though, that was just his own insecurities coming into play. The boys, however, were a decidedly different matter. Jake and Davey were utterly confused by all the drama in the house.

About a week or so after the Big Night, as they’d come to call it, Billy and Teddy were in the living room watching Jake play Mario Kart while Davey colored something free form on the construction paper they’d dug out of his mom’s craft closet. Billy had just come in from the kitchen, putting the last of the dishes in the dishwasher after their pizza had been devoured. Teddy was sitting on the leather sectional, when he asked Davey what he was drawing.

“I’m making a picture for Mom,” Davey happily chirped as he colored away, “‘cause she was crying last night and I wants her to feel better.”

“Crying?” asked Billy, looking across the sofa and the two boys at Teddy. Teddy suddenly regretted starting the entire conversation. This wasn’t something he or Billy needed at the moment.

“Yeah,” Davey said distractedly as he turned the page to color in another of his unrecognizable shapes, ”I heard her crying when I got up to go to the bathroom and I went to her and asked her what was wrong and she just hugged me hard and kissed the top of my head for a really long time and then told me to go back to bed.”

“I think she’s sad cause you’re not really hers anymore. I mean, are you even really our brother?” glared Jake.

Davey looked wide-eyed at Billy—clearly the idea had never dawned on him-and he did NOT approve. Tears come close to leaking out of his wide eyed stare. Glancing at the other boy, Teddy could see Jake was getting pissed, as he crashed and burned in the video game and turned to face Billy head on.

“How does this work, then? Some crazy magic lady decides she ought to have kids with her robot boyfriend and just /poof/ makes you up out of thin air, but then has a nervous breakdown and decides to rewrite everything again and put you here with our family?” They both had never seen Jake so angry or confused. Teddy was so used to seeing Jake as the trickster of the two, the jokey one—neither knew how to deal with that wit when it was turned against Billy in such a devastating way.

What followed was clearly one of the most awkward conversations Teddy had ever witnessed. The boys appeared to be at least temporarily mollified by the fact that Billy was so open about the crazy that had become his life. He was pretty proud of how Billy just took the all-too-blunt questions both boys threw at him and did his best to answer them in a way they both could understand. Not for the first time, he wondered if Billy might not have been a teacher if he hadn’t had the life he had. But then again, if Billy hadn’t had to deal with Kessler and everything that followed, he wouldn’t be the person sitting before him, either.

The days after that little exchange saw Billy try to draw back within himself again, so Teddy decided that since Billy was still refusing to be a hero, maybe there was another way to have him think outside himself. Billy had clearly given up on the causes he used to champion, but clearly not on people. He wouldn’t be so hurt if he’d given up on the people he loved. So all Billy needed was something to focus on; something that Billy couldn’t afford to be negligent about. And Billy had always so loved animals—something he shared with his father. Quickly excusing himself from their rewatch of “The Snowman” episode of Doctor Who, Teddy walked outside to the front of the family brownstone and gave Billy’s dad a quick call.

“A dog,” he said excitedly to the man on the other end.

“Teddy, is that you? What about a dog?”

“I think we need to get Billy a dog. Well, obviously the whole family a dog, but really I’m thinking of Billy. He needs something that’s going to love him no matter what, that’s going to depend on him enough where he can’t just ignore it or foist it off on someone else. What do you think?”

“I think that, if it was any other boy, that’d be a terrible idea. I can’t tell you how many friends of mine have bought their kids the pet they just had to have, only to find out that whatever agreement they’ve made with the rascals is null and void after the first few weeks. But we’re not talking about someone else—we’re talking about Billy. I think it’s a great idea. Billy’s favorite times when he was little was walking through the park with us on the way to the market, so he could stop and pet all the dogs. But if we’re going to do this, then we’d better do it right. No purebreds, it’ll have to be something from a shelter or service. I won’t have some poor tyke put to death just so we can have whatever ridiculous living accessory happens to be trendy at the moment.”

“I wasn’t thinking of shopping for a dog like some designer pair of jeans.”

“I’m sure you weren’t, Ted.”

“Listen, I’ll start making a list of nearby shelters and we’ll see what I can find. 

“Well, there’s no rush—although if the two boys find out about what you’re doing, there’s no way you’re not going to end up with them in the thick of it.” Billy’s dad seemed far too amused at the prospect.

“Heaven forbid,” chuckled Teddy. After saying his goodbyes, he opened a window in his phone’s browser and started searching. Surely it wouldn’t be too hard to find a dog in a city the size of New York.


	6. The Quest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A Question of Ferrets. Serendipity II. A League of Their Own. Menagerie. The Home of His Heart.

Two weeks later, Teddy was ready to scream. For every dog or puppy he’d seen that might’ve been a good fit there’d been just as many that either had so much red tape that Billy’d be out of college before he got the dog home or there was just something…off…about the dog that Teddy couldn’t quite put into words. Buying a pet for someone else was hard, Teddy was learning. It’d have been easy enough if he was picking a dog for himself, but to do so for Billy was proving trickier than he’d ever imagined.

Using the Mayor’s Alliance website as a checklist, Teddy went to the two nearest shelters in search of a dog or puppy that might need Billy as much as Billy needed it.0 And though his heart was torn up with each animal he saw, he couldn’t shake the feeling that each of the animals he met didn’t have it in them to make the connection he needed. He was shocked how many animals had been found stray, and angered by how many were there because people just couldn’t be bothered to follow through on the initial commitment they had made when getting a dog themselves. Far too many had enough descriptive elements in their biographies for them not to have had stable homes at one point, and many of those were either senior or adolescent pups. It got overwhelming quickly. He wanted to take them all home, but he couldn’t shake that nagging feeling that he was waiting for the perfect dog to present itself—that it was out there, nearby, but somehow out of reach.

Also, his frequent ‘walks’ didn’t fly under the radar as much as he would’ve liked and Billy’s father was not nearly as good at talking in code as his eldest son was. As such, it didn’t take long for the two youngest Kaplan boys to figure out that some sort of plot was afoot. It all came out out a half a week later as Mr. Kaplan hummed to himself while pouring the mixture of Dijon mustard and Sauvignon blanc over the chicken cooking in his over-sized cast iron skillet, sending steam out like a rush. Davey and Jake went about setting the table, and Billy’s dad asked how Teddy’s walk had went.

“Unproductive. Met some nice people at the park, but you know how it is. It’s New York…you meet a thousand strangers before lunch, but never anyone you get to know.”

“Well, give it time, Teddy. Rome wasn’t built in a day.”

“I don’t know how much longer I can keep doing this,” Teddy said softly, allowing the emotional toll of meeting all of these animals to momentarily blind him to the two faces that froze and looked at each other as he spoke.

“Are you cheating on Billy?” Jake asked, quiet rather than righteous.

“Wha…What?” Teddy’s head whips around to look at him, his face utterly confused.

“You go for all these walks by yourself. We just heard you complain to dad you can’t meet anyone new. And you always come back with hair on your clothes. Hair that isn’t blonde.”

“Ferret, it’s not what you think…”

“If you don’t tell me, right now, I’m going to go get Billy. And not to tell him dinner’s ready.”

Teddy looks guiltily at Jeff Kaplan, who only shrugged his shoulders with a barely contained grin. “He’s got you, Ted. You might as well come clean.”

“I am…rather, we are, you’re parents and me. We’re looking for something to help Billy get back to his old self. I know this has been confusing for you guys, you were pretty mad at us a few weeks ago. But Billy is having an even harder time trying to deal with this.”

“Cause of Cassie? I miss her, too. And Jonas. He used to let me ride on his shoulders. We went to the shore once, and he won me a big brown bear. I have her on my bed,” added Davey.

“Not just Cassie, Davey, but definitely it’s part of what’s going on. So we decided we were going to try to help him, see if we can’t get him out of his head and back with the rest of us.”

“How? And what does that have to do with you vanishing, and going for walks, and hair all over you, and OH MY GOD I am coming with you, are you serious, Davey, we are getting a DOG!” Teddy winced and moved his hands above his head down to the table, a grand shushing gesture that got Jake to stop shouting but didn’t stop him from vibrating in place trying to keep his excitement in check.

Davey’s face scrunched in a vague impression of a Gund troll before it stretched wide with a smile that flew from ear to ear as he worked through the same intuitive leap his older brother had moments before. “A DOG! I WANNA HELP”

“It’ll be Billy’s dog, now…I mean, obviously it’ll be here with all of us and we’ll need your help with it sometimes, and he’ll love all of us and everything, but he’s primarly going to be Billy’s. Can you keep this a secret, guys? It’d mean a lot to me, and to your parents. And eventually, a lot to Billy.

“Only if we get to help,” Jake said decisively, and crossed his arms tightly about his chest. Crap, thought Teddy. I know that stance. Billy’s mom had the same stance when she had made up her mind about something she knew someone wasn’t going to like, and there was nothing you could do—once those arms were crossed, that was it. The law had been laid down.

“Ok, next time I go out on a walk, I’ll take you two along. But remember—there are a lot of dogs at the shelters, and although they all need to go home with someone, we can only pick one for Billy—so, it has to be the right one.”

Davey and Jake both went back to setting the table, as Jeff Kaplan smiled at Teddy and nodded his thanks for handling the situation with the boys. Things had returned to relative normality by the time the kitchen was smelling of grilled onions and mushrooms and the boys went upstairs to fetch their brother for dinner.

A few days later, Teddy decided that a change was in order. Clearly there was something about the shelters that was just rubbing him the wrong way, and he agreed with Billy’s dad about bringing home a rescued animal rather than a purebred from a breeder. Not really sure what else to do, he found himself browsing the web once again in search of other options. He’d been scrolling through site after site for about an hour when a crash outside his window made him jolt up and run to the window. Outside, two cabbies were yelling at each other, their bumpers hooked into each other as steam poured out the front of the cab unlucky enough to have instigated the rear-ender. Shaking his head in gratitude and disappointment that someone didn’t need a hero on his doorstep he went back to the computer and pursed his lips in thought. It was a habit he’d apparently picked up from the woman he always thought of as his mother, and he sighed at the thought of her. On his screen was a shelter called the Animal League.1 Amused at the title, thinking the Billy he was trying to reach would approve of the heroic sounding name, he decided that was the destination of his next walk. 

The next day, Billy’s mom called them midmorning and asked them out to lunch. Teddy declined, however, saying that he had promised the two boys that he was going to take them to the comic shop so they could trade in some of their older games for something that liked a bit more. Rebecca Kaplan didn’t know how to take no for answer, so as Teddy, Davey, and Jake headed off to the comic shop, Billy headed in the other direction to meet his mom for some ‘bonding time’, as his mom called it on the phone before they’d hung up.

In reality, of course, the trio were on their way to the Animal League’s shelter on the North Shore. They held hands as they entered Penn Station, pulling on each other in tandem once Jake spotted the 448 train to Port Washington. Teddy had stopped at an ATM on the way to get the cab fare he’d need for the way home. There was no way he was bringing home a new dog, possibly a puppy, on a crowded train. That way lay disaster. He let the boys pull him on the train and let them find the three of them a seat. After about forty minutes or so, he heard their stop called and motioned the boys out of their seats. Once the doors creaked open and they found themselves at the station, Teddy checked his phone for directions and they were off. It turns out the adoption center was only about a ten minute walk from the station. 

“Welcome to Animal League, what can I help you with today?” asked a young man sitting at the reception desk, his warm blue eyes framed by shoulder length brown hair greeting them as they entered. He was dressed in a purple crew shirt with some butterscotch colored khaki pants that seemed more pocket than pants. Seriously, those pants were covered in them. This guy seemed to have stuff in almost every one of them, given how they bulged. He had all the pockets. ALL of the pockets, Teddy thought to himself, with a small smile. Then he suddenly realized he’d been staring at the guy’s pants while he’d clearly been asked at least one question. Teddy averted his eyes quickly—probably too quickly. Ken chuckled then, and said, “I’m Ken,” and offered his left hand to Teddy to shake, which Teddy did with the appropriate amount of firmness. “So boys,” Ken turned to Davey and Jake, “what kind of animal are you looking for today?”

“A DOG! Oh, it’s not for us, it’s for Billy. But Teddy said we got to help pick him out. It’s a secret,” Davey conspiratorially whispered to Ken.

Teddy winced, still embarrassed and trying to look anywhere but at Ken. He was only human, you know. Well, not exactly. But still. “Billy’s my partner. These are his brothers. Billy’s parents sent them to me as my chaperones, as I’m clearly not normally allowed in public.”

Ken laughed hard at that, somewhere between a belly laugh and a guffaw. “I can relate,” he said, showing Teddy the simple silver ring that wrapped around his right ring finger, a small bear paw print pressed into its center. “That’s why I spend so much time here. The boyfriend says I’m better off with the animals.”

Relieved, Teddy took a moment to take in the place. He was impressed how big the center was; the reception area was wide open, and the roof and half of all the walls were glass rather than the painted brick he’d gotten used to after the last few weeks of his search. The bottom half of the walls were tiled in a subway-like harlequin pattern, with inset benches on all side and a center island of benches as well. Hopefully this was a good sign.

“We are looking for a dog—maybe a puppy—for the family,” Teddy said quickly, turning his attention back to Ken. Without even thinking about it, he reached into his front pocket and pulled out his wallet to show Ken his fake ID, silently blessing Kate. She’d demanded both he and Billy get one if they were going to hang out with her during their downtime from the team a year ago, and her father being her father, she’d known people who could get such a thing done. He’d started to show it by rote after the first two shelters he went to demanded proof he was of the age of majority before talking to him about adoption. Given that he was shopping for someone else, and now with the two ferrets in tow, he knew he had to get any question of his fitness as a potential owner out of the way as easily and quickly as possible.

Ken nodded and gave the ID back to Teddy. “Sadly, I have to stay here and man the desk. The things I do for this place,” giving a Teddy a one-eyed wink. Teddy didn’t think he could turn any redder than he had earlier, but apparently he was wrong. Ken laughed again, “Let me go grab one of our adoption counselors for you…I think Elaine is free. She was just getting some of our newest treasures situated.” 

The man’s reassuring demeanor put Teddy at ease…and flustered him a bit, too. He could still look, couldn’t he? I mean, he couldn’t really help it. As Ken walked away, he couldn’t help but glance in his direction. The way the guy was walking definitely highlighted his assets. He didn’t really slink down the hallway, but he insinuated in a way that made Teddy break out into a light sweat. It’d been ages since anyone but Billy had this effect on him, just by being around them. He shook his head, tapping his foot to whatever song it was. Listening for a moment, he caught Katherine McPhee’s voice singing “Whatever you do, always trust in the truth/well, the table’s bound to turn right back on you.” Teddy recognized it as a line from a song that was in the one episode of Smash Billy had forced him to watch. 

Ken came back through the swinging door with an older woman following right behind him. She was taller than Teddy, slender with long grey hair that went up into a bun in the center but had shoulder-blade length whisps that fell behind her. Teddy thought her brown, crinkled eyes seemed kind.

“Hi there. I’m Elaine. Ken tells me you’ve made his morning”

Teddy cleared his throat, unsure of what to say. The phone rang then and Ken walked back to his desk, chuckling. “Sorry, sorry,” Elaine said with a smile that caused the silver jewlery that hung on loose cords around her neck to jingle in a way that reminded Teddy of windchimes. “I swear, he’s a bad influence on every single one of us. Don’t get me wrong, he’s got a heart of gold…but I think he’d even flirt with the animals, as long as he had an audience. Let’s take a look at your application form.”

Teddy handed her the form on the clipboard Ken had given him, and waited patiently as she skimmed through the two page document. “Well, everything here seems to be in order. Guess now we have the hard part ahead of us.” 

“What’s the hard part?” Jake asked.

“Well, you’ll have to meet the dogs, of course. We have a lot of them to choose from. I see you want to stay clear of purebreds, and that’s fine. Most of our dogs are strays or mixed-breed drop-offs from families who didn’t know what they were getting into. I’ll take you through to them. If you see any of them that you want to get to know a little better,” Elaine said as she led them down a stairway and through a door at its base, “Let me know, and we can put them in a play pen for you to interact with.” 

There were several rows of crates on both sides of the hallway, and the noise of the dogs gradually rose as they walked in between them taking a peek in each crate. Jake and Davey were surprisingly serious about the whole thing, not even smiling but kneeling down and looking at each dog as if they were looking for something on their faces that’d tell them they’d found the one.

Davey squealed when he stumbled across a puppy in a crate marked “Collins”, who looked like some blend of a yellow lab and a golden.2 The puppy was very young, and tried his best to amble over to Davey’s outstretched hand in his crate, and fell just as it reached him and started to slather him with kisses, causing Davey to start giggling uncontrollably. Clearly, his dad’s love of animals hadn’t been passed down to Billy alone. 

Jake, on the other hand, seemed curious about a smaller dog a bit further down on the left. As Teddy got a bit closer, he saw the crate was marked “Rosario”, and the cute dog seemed to have something tough about her.3 She was dark brown, but with a face mask and inner legs of an almost creamy tan color. He noticed her under-ears seemed to be the same lighter color, flopping about as she scratched at her head with her back paw. As Jake squatted down and reached his hand through the bars on her crate, she sat alert, observing. After he left his hand there for a few seconds, she tilted her head to the left and approached him sniffing. 

“That’s our Rosie,”said Elaine. “She has to be a mix of at least three or four different breeds. She got dropped off by a family who found her wandering in an alley behind their house. They found her not far from some seafood restaurant, and they thought she was stealing food from the place’s garbage trundles.” Rosario, once again tilting her head, was clearly judging Jake’s intentions. After a few more seconds she bowed her head under his hand and Jake started to pet and scritch her head and ears. For some reason, Teddy was suddenly choked up.

“She’s relatively new around here, only a few weeks old. We can’t decide if she had some sort of training, or was possibly abused, because she’s always on high alert,” Elaine continued. “If she came over to you that quickly, then she’s decided you’re to be trusted. It was the same thing with the couple’s little girl. Rosario wouldn’t have anything to do with the cooks at the restaurant who had tried to corner her to feed her. She was even skittish with the couple that brought her in. But their little girl, she showed up in the alley and Rosie did the exact same thing she did with you. Stared for a bit, slowly stalked her until she was in arms reach, and then loved her to death.”

Jake looked up at Teddy, “What do you think? She seems really protective, but she’s definitely friendly.” He looked down at his hand which was almost dripping with doggy saliva.

“If she got along with the family that brought her in so well, why didn’t they keep her?” Teddy asked, looking for more of the story. He sensed Elaine was holding something back, and he wasn’t about to leave anything involving their choice to chance if he could avoid it.

“The wife,” Elaine said sadly, shaking her head much like Rosario had, ”had horrible allergies. They had to keep Rosie in the garage for the day or two they had her, just so the lady’s throat wouldn’t swell up.” By then Davey had left Collins to join them. When he reached into Rosario’s cage to pet her, though, she almost jumped back as her nose started to sniff a mile a minute. She backed up into a far corner of her crate, looking at Jake as if he’d somehow betrayed her.

“She might be a little shaky, Jake,” Teddy said gently to the boy. He looked a bit dejected. Clearly he’d already bonded with the little dog. What was it with the Kaplan men and animals? “Why don’t we look at some older dogs, Jake. Most of the younger dogs and puppies here have a better shot of finding homes, anyhow.”

“That’s true,” Elaine nodded. “It’s too bad about Rosie. She definitely seemed to like Jake here. Let me show you some of our older dogs.” She walked through another door and turned left. These crates were bigger, and while there were all sorts of dog sounds echoing through the room, it was decidedly quieter than the other room. Apparently, they had passed through the puppy wing first—or at least, that’s what it looked like to Teddy.

“This here is Mister,” Elaine motioned to the crate she’d stopped in front of.4 Inside, laying with its front paws crossed in front of him, was a pretty large dog who seemed to have a question on his face. His fur was almost universally the same tan color that was on Rosario’s undercoat, except for some black fur above his eyes that looked exactly like large, bushy eyebrows. He had two small finger-length white spots down by his tail. What struck Teddy the most strongly about this dog was his eyes—they seemed remarkably intelligent. He’d met some humans who didn’t seem to have as much going behind the eyes as this dog seemed to have.

Teddy reached out to touch the bars on the crate, not quite reaching inside but getting his scent into the dog’s space to gauge his reaction. “Hi, Mister. I’m Teddy, this is Jake and Davey.”

“Hi, Mister,” Davey said. For just a second, Teddy blinked. Davey loved to antagonize Billy with parroting his big brother’s voice back at him. It was one of his sure fire ways of getting under his brother’s skin when he wanted attention, or to pay him back if Billy had pushed the boy too far. Davey’s ability to mimic Billy was almost uncanny. Without probably even realizing he’d done it, he’d approached this dog using Billy’s voice—except he’d added a pretty pronounced lisp in the middle of the dog’s name, as if he was mocking Billy.

Mister sat right up on his hind legs and did something that caused Teddy to bust out with a laugh that was echoed by both younger boys—he scrunched the muscles above his eyes together, bringing those black eyebrow-like stripes in at a sharper angle. It looked just like what Teddy had called Billy’s bitchface, as in “Bitch, please.” It was a look that had cracked Teddy up on numerous occasions—often in response to Davey’s vocal teasing.

Jake, barely able to speak through his laughter, garbled out, “Oh my god, he’s Billy. He’s Billy if Billy were a dog. Can we have two Billys? _Should_ we have…” before he finally fell from his crouching position and just laughed himself to tears. Mister merely turned his head to look at each of them in turn, with his imperious posture, with his darker jowls curved slightly up on the end. This just made Jake—and Davey, now too—howl louder, because it looked precisely like the sarcastic dog was smirking at them.

After a few minutes in which all three of them got themselves under control, Elaine cleared her throat and continued where she’d left off before everything had momentarily slid off the rails. “Mister’s a Pit Bull/Terrier mix, about a year old. As you can tell, he has a bit of an attitude. He’s friendly, loves to play, and is great with other dogs—but he also seems to love to mock anything that’s beneath him. He’s been here since he was a puppy, sadly. He’s gone home with people twice, but he always seems to find his way back.”

“He seems great, “ Teddy chimed in, “why would they return him?”

“Well, that attitude you guys seem to love also seems to apply to rules the families try to set for him. Most things he readily adapts to, but he seems to see things a certain way. For example, he absolutely refused to let his last owner have him sleep in his crate. He would only stop barking once he was let out, and then he would silently jump up onto the fellow’s bed, roll on his side and give one of his little looks.”

“Oh,” gulped Teddy as he tried to suppress a grin as he imagined Billy arguing with the dog about sleeping arrangements, both of them turning their heads and making that sass face at each other. This didn’t sound like a bad thing, really. At least, not for a few years. Once they got their own place, they’d have to get a bigger bed anyways.

“The owners before him walked him twice a day, once before they went to work in the morning and then once after they’d eaten. In all honesty, that probably should’ve been enough, since they let him outside to pee at least once before they went to bed. But he routinely would wake them both up around 3am, both barking and shaking his crate until they let him out and took him outside—and most times, he refused to do anything once he was out there.”

“That wouldn’t go over real well with Billy’s folks,” Teddy replied slowly. He felt his heart sink. So much of Mister’s personality, his everything, had felt like the perfect fit. The dog was already so like his boyfriend, they would’ve bonded instantly. He’d read how protective and affectionate pit bulls and terriers both could be, with the proper care—and Billy would’ve cared for Mister in seconds. Looking at Jake, he could see he was disappointed too. They got up and they looked at a bunch of the other adult dogs in the hallway, but all three of them were just moping. Clearly they had their hearts set on Mister, but he just was too much of a wild card. It sounded like he needed 24/7 attention, and seemed to enjoy creating difficulties. And while he had hoped for something for Billy to focus on and care about to help him out of his shell, he didn’t want whatever dog he picked out to be a burden.

Resigned that their search was a bust, Teddy gathered the two boys and bent down to their height. “Well, boys. We’ve seen just about every dog they have here. Was there any one that you think would be a good fit for Billy?” asked Teddy, determinedly not looking in the direction of Mister’s crate. After a moment, Davey bit his lip and just shook his head. Jake followed suit afterwords and Teddy let out a sigh.

“How firm are your guidelines, in terms of what you’re looking for?” Elaine asked, looking at Teddy.

“What do you mean?”

“I’m asking because you had checked off on the adoption sheet that you were interested in mixed breed only. How set are you on not getting a purebred?

“Well… “ Teddy hesitated. He liked this place. And he wanted Mister, damn it. But if he couldn’t have him, he still needed to find a dog for Billy. Elaine seemed to have a good feel for what they were looking for, at this point, so he decided to roll with it. “Sure, I guess. It isn’t going to hurt to look.”

“Let me just show you the folks I was grooming when you came in. They’re new to us, so I have them in a separate room while we get to know them.” Elaine clucked her tongue against her cheek, almost admonishingly. Teddy found the gesture odd, but followed her as she led Jake, Davey, and himself to the other end of the hallway and through another door. What lay beyond was a large square room, with two large skylights centered in the ceiling bathing the white tile floor in light. Bright panels of primary colors seemed to be placed randomly on the walls as decoration. Looking closer, Teddy could see they were cork boards that had been painted or dyed. 

In the center of the room were four crates. Two had poodles of some kind, one very small, that yipped and scrabbled to the nearest wall of its crate and coated the bars by its mouth with saliva from its almost lizard-fast tongue. Teddy admitted it was cute, but it wasn’t what he was looking for. The other poodle was tall, but growled when it saw them. He’d pass on that, thanks. One of the other remaining crates was empty.

“That empty crate is for Cecille. She’s a husky/golden mix, and a bit of a trickster. She loves to tease the other dogs and the rest of us by stealing anything we don’t have nailed down and hiding it, and then rolls around as if she’s laughing. She isn’t quite ready for adoption. We’re testing her for worms now—she’s another one that got turned in by someone who found her on the street. Well, the beach, in her case. She apparently was living off the scraps people gave her for doing her crazy tricks.” Elaine clearly had a lot of affection for the dog. “I wouldn’t be surprised if one of us doesn’t end up taking her home, just to spite her,” Elaine chuckled.

In the final crate sat a dog looking out with rich brown eyes. His tail was short and almost wedge shaped, and his brindled fur was at least five or six different shades of light grey intermixed. He had a long, squarish muzzle capped by a black nose and fluffy ears that seemed to almost fold in on themselves. His cuteness seemed awkward somehow, and Teddy found himself smiling as he watching him stand, his big legs in a wide stance that made Teddy think of some gunslinger in the wild west. For all that the dog was large, Teddy could tell from looking at him that he still was mostly a puppy.

“This fellow is good for adoption, though. He came in yesterday morning, dropped off in front of the building before we opened in a basket with a note. We got his bloodwork back last night before close. I don’t think he has a name, yet. We’re marking him as a mixed breed because we can’t quite figure out what he is. He looks a lot like a Central Asian Ovarchka—but he’s not. The bloodwork has us all stumped, to be honest. But I have a theory.”6

“Yeah?” Teddy puzzled as he watched the grey dog watch them all, “What’s that?”

Elaine went over to a large, loudly floral purse resting on a tall chair by a counter on the far side of the room, and pulled out a fairly thick book. “Take a look at this picture and tell me what you think.”

The dog was whining as it followed Davey and Jake with its eyes. While Teddy studied the page Elaine had opened to as she handed it to him, she set up a series of barricades around the crate, thick plastic grates that seemed to snap into place with each other creating a makeshift pen. Teddy kept studying the line drawing, and it instantly struck Teddy how almost identical the nameless dog was to the picture—smaller, though, as it was still an adolescent. The face, especially, was eerily similar.

“I only volunteer here on Wednesdays and Fridays,” Elaine said conspiratorially. “Otherwise, I teach at Fordham, actually, and I’ve got a small research fellowship at the Cloisters for the semester. I stumbled across this book doing some research on medieval floriography, of all things. I was flipping through it last night when that drawing caught my eye. I brought it in with me this morning to be sure, but my face looked a lot like yours does now. The dog in that drawing is an Alaunt, a breed that’s been extinct since the 17th century. Now, the Alaunt is supposed to have fathered several different breeds that are still around today. And they were supposed to look a lot like our modern Central Asian Ovarchka.”

Teddy looked at Elaine oddly, “So what you’re saying is…”

“What I’m saying is, here we have a dog that at first glance looks like a CAO, but his genotyping doesn’t place him in any known breed on record. Who also happens to look precisely like an extinct species of dog that hasn’t been seen in over 200 years. Beyond that, it’s just supposition,” Elaine smiled and backed the two younger boys away from the entrance to the crate but keeping them inside the penned off area and released the latch. The dog pushed the door open with its muzzle and sauntered out of the crate until he was just a foot or so right in front of Davey and Jake. He was sitting perfectly still on his hind legs, just like Mister had, and Teddy was nervous until he saw the tail moving behind him, the grey wedge of fur wagging so quickly it seemed a blur.

Before Elaine or Teddy knew what was happening, the dog jumped up with a bark and, with one over-sized paw on each Kaplan boy, toppled both to the floor in surprise. Each boy was then subjected to an insensate amount of doggy kisses all over their arms and faces. The dog jumped back and forth between Davey and Jake, making sure both stayed put as he clearly intended to love them to death. 

“He’ll be a big dog, if those paws are any indication. Of course, CAOs and Alaunts both are big fellas. This guy might be bigger than that, though, when all is said and done. More than likely, some Ovarchka mated with some other breed that had an Alaunt pedigree and this stealthy beast was their love child. He’s probably just a throwback to their older stock.”

Teddy had noticed the ridiculous size of the paws as well, and it made him trepidatious. Barely out of puppyhood, this strange dog was already 2/3 the size of Mister. Could the brownstone even support a dog that large? He stepped inside the pen and the dog stopped his ministrations to the two boys and sat back up, almost formally. He looked Teddy square in the eyes and he could swear the dog was searching him out just as much as he was the dog. After a moment he walked over to Teddy, right to his feet, and then flopped down and rolled over onto his back, tail wagging. Teddy reached down and scratched the dog’s tummy and chuckled as it squirmed on the ground just like the boys did when they were under a tickle attack. 

“He seems a bit more playful than your average Ovarchka, but he definitely is a shepherd dog,” Elaine continued. “He’ll bond with the whole family in time, and he’ll help you keep these boys in line. And once he does identify you all as his family, you won’t find a bigger protector. They tend to mature slower emotionally than some other breeds, so it may take some time for any training to really stick. But once it does, it won’t budge.”

The dog persevered the older boy’s attention for several minutes, letting out soft barks of approval before eventually jumping up and running over to Jake and Davey, who were once again the victims of a vicious puppy tongue about the face. Both boys started to roll around with the dog, as a game of chase broke out, and the dog climbed all over them and then raced away, licking them when they got in range. This went on for almost 15 minutes, with Teddy just watching the boys and the dog wear themselves out. Finally, both boys were sitting on the floor and the puppy was resting on the ground with his tongue out, clearly content. He walked up to Teddy, and proceeded to stand on his hind legs, pushing the top of his head into Teddy’s hand. Teddy slid his hand over the dog’s head, slowly scritching around the ears and under its jawline. He knelt down, cradling the dog’s head in his hand and looked again into its soft, brown eyes. Are you the one? Teddy wondered. There was something in the look the dog was giving him from eyes far older than the few months since it had been born. Protective, sure, Teddy could see that. There was something else there, though. Something timeless, somehow, and unfathomably gentle. 

The boys, unaware of whatever was transpiring between Teddy and the puppy, launched on it in a sneak attack. It just laid down in front of Teddy and let the boys lay down on top of it, resting their heads on its fur as Jake and Davey looked up at Teddy. “He’s the one, Teddy. He’s Billy’s dog, I just know it.”

And just like that, Teddy guessed he knew it too. Unlike Mister, who was maybe too like Billy, this dog seemed to fit perfectly around Billy’s jagged edges. He was unabashedly friendly, but seemed somehow unsure of how to be so. He was protective, but needed something—someone—to protect. Elaine swore he’d be a slow but steady learner, too. And if the size was too big, that just meant the dog’s heart would be that much bigger to love Billy. He tried to picture the dog at full size, stretched alongside Billy in his bed, both of them gently snoring—and imagined it perfectly. Teddy knew Billy’s dad was going to take one look at the galute and fall for him. He realized he was trying to justify this to himself, fearing the commitment if he made a mistake. He didn’t want to be one of those people who bought a dog only to return them after a few days. On the other hand, he was terrified that if didn’t snatch the puppy up someone else was going to fall in love with his demeanor. 

It took them all of about an hour to fill out the paperwork, and then another thirty minutes as Elaine went through yet more paperwork she was sending home with Teddy. They went over a lot of basics, once she ascertained that none of the boys had ever had a dog before. How often he needed to be fed and given water didn’t surprise anyone, but Davey was surprised to learn dogs don’t use litter boxes. Jake continued to harass Davey for the rest of the day about that salient fact. 

When it was all said and done, he was glad Billy’s dad had given him his credit card. It came out to a lot more than he originally had thought, but at least they threw in some food samples of what they’d been serving him at the shelter. He took the crate too, figuring it was industrial quality and was going to be better than whatever he found at a pet store. Elaine winked and gave him a discount on that, too.

The puppy paced in his crate, tail wagging as he sought out the faces of his new owners. He gave a little bark each time Davey smiled at him. Teddy laughed when it came time for them to leave, as he tried to imagine fitting their fidgety puppy in a cab, alongside the three of them. Thankfully, Ken knew some folks who knew some folks and helped them find a shuttle service that would take them and the dog back to Chelsea. Equally thankfully, the shuttle took credit. He texted Billy’s folks on the way home, letting them know there was a new addition to the household.

When they got home, Teddy sent the boys upstairs to their room. He knelt in front of the crate and attached the leash Elaine had given him to the puppy’s color as he reached between the bars. He unlatched the crate and gave the leash to Billy’s dad, who’s eyes almost immediately grew misty as the puppy walked forward and sat at his feet, his front paws resting on Mr. Kaplan’s feet. The puppy then proceeded to reach up with his front paws, almost as if he was reaching out for a hug. Jeff reached up and wiped his eyes, complaining about the dust in the room. His wife, easily the more skeptical of the two in regards to this covert mission, had her mouth open in something like shock. She reached out a hand, and the not-quite-small wriggling ball of fur nudged its head to fit into her cupped hand. She quickly grabbed her mouth with her other hand and her husband reached around her and drew her to him. They both gave Teddy a nod and he headed towards Billy’s room. He found Billy sitting on the floor, listening to some Nina Simone album Kate had sent over. Kate insisted on vinyl. 

“I’m back from our walkabout to the Land of Recycled Games. Teri says hey,” said Teddy, leaning in for a kiss. Billy gave in to the kiss, but his eyes were saying something different, more accusatory than anything—a haunted, hurt look that broke Teddy’s heart. He sighed, grateful that he could come clean before all the deception took more of a toll.

“OK, I have a confession to make,” Teddy grimaced. “I know you’ve had some suspicions about where I’ve been going to on my ‘walks’ lately. And you’d be right to. No one likes to walk that much. Not when they have wings—or a teleporting boyfriend. On the plus side, this only proves to you what an absolutely horrible liar I am. So there’s that.” Teddy paused and took a breath. “Right, so. I haven’t precisely been going out on walks, though walking was involved, and we didn’t go to the game shop today. I took the ferrets with me to meet someone, someone who really wants to meet you. They really liked him, so he’s…um…here. Do you feel up to meeting him?”

Billy wasn’t nervous to the point of shaking, but he felt a bit sick. Why was Teddy playing with him? Had he found someone else, was Teddy sick of putting up with him? Had he brought some hero home in some attempt to get Billy to change his mind—like Tommy had tried to do the week before? Feeling like all of his insides were sour butterflies trying to escape his mouth, he just nodded, scared of what might come out if he tried to speak. 

“Ok, then. Let me go get him,” Teddy said gently, and went back out into the hall. As he aproached, Jeff Kaplan let go of the leash, but Teddy missed the pass and the small, gray brindled puppy made at first a few tentative steps towards Teddy, nose to the air as he smelled Teddy’s scent, and then rushed right through his legs, down the hall and jumped on Billy, slathering his face with kisses. Billy shook his head, trying to process what was happening but only managed to get some puppy tongue in his mouth. He looked up at Teddy as he ran into the room, utterly speechless.

“So this is what I’ve been up to the past few weeks. Well, not with this fella precisely, but looking for him. I knew you were feeling overwhelmed and you needed someone that wouldn't pressure you, that might need you as much as you needed someone outside the giant drama zone that things have been lately. So I asked your folks a couple of days after they found out about Wanda if they thought this was a good idea, and your dad couldn’t say yes loudly enough. I told him the dog would be yours, and not his, but you might have to fight him for this guy.”

“I know you love me, for all that you can be a pain the ass, but I got to wondering if maybe your heart was big enough for both of us.” He sat down behind Billy, this time wrapping his own arms around Billy’s slight frame. The puppy wasn’t letting Billy get a word in edgewise, so Teddy continues, “We found him in a shelter up on the North Shore called Animal League.” Billy tried to say something, but got another mouthful of tongue. No amount of petting on Billy’s part seemed to be slowing the dog down. He was committed to covering every inch of Billy’s head in puppy slobber.

“Yeah,” Teddy chuckled, “I thought you’d dig that. Made me think of your idea about forming a superhero group out of all the pets of the heroes we know. Anyhow, this adoption agent named Elaine helped us pick him out. Seems he’s a bit of a mystery. They sold him to me saying he was a mixed breed, but the truth is they don’t know what he is. I guess he looks just like something called a Central Asian Ovarchka, which is a really big shepherding dog, but he isn’t one. I guess his coloring was the first clue—they’re never gray, and this guy is nothing but. Elaine seemed to think he’s a throwback to some extinct breeding line or something.”

Teddy smiled at Billy’s parents, who appeared in the doorway to the room looking down at their son wearing the first genuine smile they’d seen on him in weeks. After a moment, they turned and Teddy heard them going upstairs, probably to talk to the ferrets about their adventure.

“You can tell from his paws he’s gonna be a ridiculously big for a dog, but apparently he’s not likely to lose this level of goofiness. Elaine mentioned how strong CAOs personalities could be, and this seems to be something unique just to him. What else did she say…he’ll be loyal and protective. Oh, and he’s going to need to go on lots of walks, cause his kind is used to roaming fields herding and protecting sheep. Not a lot of sheep in Manhattan, so we might have to rein him in a bit until he learns how to behave. She said he’ll probably bond to just one or two people the most, and the rest of the family to a lesser extent.” 

The dog stopped its facial attack and just sat there, half on Billy with his butt between Billy’s legs, his tail completely still as he sat looking into Billy’s eyes. Billy took in a breath that seemed impossible to let out. Squeezing Billy tighter, resting his chin over his shoulder and looking at the puppy, Teddy added, “Oh, yeah. I guess he was just dropped off right outside their shelter yesterday before they opened, which is kinda weird. Anyhow, there was a note pinned to the basket whoever dropped him off left him in. Who drops a puppy off in a basket? Hang on, I’ve got it here somewhere…” 

Teddy rifled through the papers Elaine had given him, finally stumbling across the piece of scrap paper with the pin holes in it midway through the sheaf of ownership tips they still had to go through, and handed it to Billy. Billy held it up in his right hand, the left holding the puppy’s head as it continued to stare at him, and every now and again letting its tongue out to pant in some extra breath after all his exertion.

_I leave it to you to find him a true home._  
 _He will be loyal,and will always protect_  
 _the home of his heart. His name is Cavall._

“Teddy, that was the the name of…” Billy trailed off in wonder as he picked the puppy up, looking into those still, dark eyes as his tears finally, finally started to fall.7 As Teddy squeezed him tighter, and the dog reached out with his tongue to lick at the salty rivulets tracing Billy’s face, none of the three of them noticed the star-like shimmer that appeared suddenly over Billy’s hands as they gripped the lovestruck puppy, and just as quickly vanished.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 0[The Mayor’s Alliance](https://animalalliancenyc.org/) is a real thing! It’s a coalition of almost 200 animal rescues and shelters that work with Animal Control to try to turn NYC into a no-kill zone by 2015. 
> 
> 1[The Animal League](http://animalleage.com/) is a very real place, with very real animals available for adoption. I adapted a lot of what I could find about the place and filled in the blanks with my own imagination. The depiction of the Animal League in this piece of short fiction is not meant to emblemize the real world Animal League adoption center in any way, shape or form.
> 
> 2Collins is a real dog, and he was really available at the time of the first draft of this story through the very real Animal League website, [here](http://www.animalleague.org/adopt-a-pet/dogs/adopt/profiles/Collins0626B.html). The pic below was taken from his page on their website. Here’s what he looks like:  
>   
>  
> 
> 3Rosario is also real, and was also available for adoption through the Animal League site [here](http://www.animalleague.org/adopt-a-pet/dogs/adopt/profiles/Rosario0626H.html). The pic below was taken from her page on their website. Have a picture of her adorableness:  
>   
>  
> 
> 4Mister is also real, and was likewise [available for adoption](http://www.aspca.org/nyc/adoptable-dogs/mister-a20055367) at the ASPCA adoption center in the NYC area. Here’s his picture, eyebrows and all, from his profile page on their site:  
> 
> 
> All the other dogs mentioned are fictitious, but the needs of shelter pets are not. If you’re considering getting a pet, please visit your local shelter first before you decide on getting a purebred from a breeder. These animals rely on us to take care of them!  
> 6And then we come to Cavall!!!! Dear lord, the cuteness! I took some liberties with ties between the Alaunt and the CAO breeds, I’ll admit. But you don’t care about that, you want pictures! Here’s a picture of what I imagine Cavall looked like, but sadly the story is accurate in that I’ve never seen a picture of a gray brindled CAO. So here’s a white CAO puppy that I used as a reference, that popped up on my Google search for CAO puppies, but the origin link seems to be a Tumblr search with no actual attribution for this particular image. If it’s yours, please contact me! Without further ado, a slightly younger, slightly whiter Cavall:
> 
>  
> 
> And here’s a picture of what an adult CAO with that coloring would look like, that I found on the CAO page of Wikipedia with no further attribution:  
> 
> 
> And here’s a [Tumblr search](http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/central) for more about CAOs!


	7. Coda

_And in a window precisely across the street, the old woman named Elaine, who once worked at an animal shelter on Long Island’s North Shore, vanished with a shimmer and Wanda Maximoff smiled._

_As awkward as things had become once the Kaplans had learned the truth of their son’s most recent exploits and his even odder original parentage, she’d wisely disguised herself after renting the apartment several weeks earlier. She didn’t necessarily need to be seen to still do what she could to take care of and protect her sons. And if Billy couldn’t see how much of a hero he was to her--and to the world--already, despite his flaws and the tragedy that followed, well. She knew how that felt. She’d always felt that way._

_He wouldn’t find self-forgiveness leaning against a windowsill, a glass wall between him and the world. No amount of barriers between him and his pain were going to help him come to terms with what had happened the past few years. He needed to go through it, be annealed by it, and come out the other side._

_A quest was in order._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 7What did Billy try to say before he was overcome at the end? **_Stay tuned for further installments!_**


End file.
